An estimated one in four adults worldwide has metabolic syndrome. While metabolic syndrome is most often thought of as a warning sign that diabetes or cardiovascular disease may be on the horizon, my team’s new study suggests that its consequences reach further – and it actually may be accelerating the ageing of the brain.

Metabolic syndrome is not a single disease. Rather, it’s a cluster of interrelated risk factors, including high blood sugar, high blood pressure, excess belly fat, low levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol and high triglycerides (blood fats). A diagnosis of metabolic syndrome means having at least three of the five components. Each of these risk factors raises health risks on its own, but together they compound one another.

Previous studies have linked metabolic syndrome to increased risk of neurological disorders such as stroke, dementia and even Parkinson’s disease. But what metabolic syndrome actually does to the brain, and how, has remained unclear.

My colleagues and I set out to answer this using data from 27,375 study participants from the UK Biobank, a large research database that tracks the health of UK adults between the ages of 40 and 70 as they age. At the centre of our analysis was a concept........

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